Ken Bugul: Nobody Wants Her - Portait of an Author

Chantal Akerman reads a script detailing the woes that befell her on the day she thought about "The Future of Cinema". The camera continuously rotates 360 degrees around her apartment as she rereads the script at an exponentially increasing speed. At its heart, an homage to Godard.

A penniless, fast-thinking musician buys a lottery ticket which he glues to his back door, in hopes of eventually retrieving his instrument from his exasperating landlady. —but the ticket wins...

The only surviving accomplice of a gas station robbery gone bad, Samba Traoré flees the scene with a suitcase full of cash. However, his newfound happiness is put to the test as he struggles to cope with the moral crisis of his crimes.

If any single piece can act as a key to Ruiz, it may be the 1997 short Le Film à Venir (The Film to Come). The titular film is a holy fragment of celluloid that can only be seen by a secret society known as the Philokinetes. They watch it on a loop, somnambulating through a life that is unreal by comparison. It is the belief of the Philokinetes that film has an existence “independent from humans. Cinema, they said, is the primeval soup of a new life form. There from were to emerge pure screening creatures. Which is to say, non-topical beings.” - n+1

Cinema is Magic offers a rare insight into the filmmaking process of one of African cinema’s foremost directors Djibril Diop Mambéty. Interspersed with clips from his films, Mambety poetically discusses his deep love of cinema and philosophical approach to life and making art. Director Silvia Voser, had a long-standing working relationship with Mambéty having worked as a producer on Le Franc (1994). Her documentary captures the auteur’s hopeful outlook on cinema and its infinite possibilities.